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From CNBC Business Journalist to Critic of Bankers on MSNBC

Dylan Ratigan on the set of his show. He says this will be “Fix-It Week” and he will look at problems like the federal budget deficit.Credit
Sara Krulwich/The New York Times

On most cable newscasts, the people who are writing new financial regulations are called congressmen. But on “The Dylan Ratigan Show” on MSNBC, some are called “banksters.”

That term, a twist on gangsters, tells viewers a lot about Mr. Ratigan, a financial news apostate who has transformed himself into an outspoken opponent of too-big-to-fail banks and the politicians whom he calls their servants. In the recent fight over financial reform, he lent a megaphone to people who wanted an end to “too big to fail,” and he called on viewers to lobby the Senators in his imaginary Bankster Party.

All this from a man who, until recently, hosted a stock-picking show on CNBC, the cable personification of Wall Street. Now Mr. Ratigan, who labels himself a taxpayer advocate, rails against the “vampire” banks who “have assumed control of our government.”

“It’s like being the guy who was running the casino, and then having an awakening and realizing that the casino is what’s killing the country,” Mr. Ratigan said in an interview last week.

On Friday, he concluded that the financial overhaul, which Democrats hope to send to President Obama by the end of the week, would not put a halt to what he calls theft by the banks. The bill is “nothing more than window dressing,” he said. On CNBC, meanwhile, there was almost an audible sigh of relief that the reforms were, as Maria Bartiromo put it, “not as strict as many people had feared.”

Both channels are owned by NBC Universal. MSNBC, which leans left in prime time, epitomizes a very different view of the world than CNBC, which is sometimes mistaken for the captain of the stock market cheerleading squad.

The financial crisis and subsequent bailouts have already had a powerful effect on American politics, helping to start the Tea Party movement and putting some proponents of government action on the defensive. The financial crisis also tested cable television’s lucrative financial news channels, which have strained to balance the corporate interests of their audience with government intervention and rising populist anger.

Mr. Ratigan underwent a “Lou Dobbs-like transformation,” from sober-minded journalist to all-out advocate, said Andrew Leckey, the president of the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism at Arizona State University.

In a nod to his old network, Mr. Ratigan said that CNBC “does more good than bad,” because it “still shines the light on the debate about ideas in the financial markets.” But MSNBC seems to be a better platform than CNBC for a political crusade against corruption, said Mr. Ratigan, 38, whose one-year anniversary at MSNBC will come on Tuesday.

On Monday, Mr. Ratigan will begin “Fix-It Week,” proposing solutions to problems like the federal budget deficit and dependence on foreign oil. “Dylan wants to change the world. He’s a crusader,” said Phil Griffin, the president of MSNBC.

There are risks for crusaders, and one is that they can potentially turn into Howard Beale, Peter Finch’s character in the 1976 movie
“Network.”

Photo

Dylan Ratigan says that the financial overhaul bill is “nothing more than window dressing.”Credit
Sara Krulwich/The New York Times

“You can become almost a stereotype of yourself,” Mr. Leckey said.

Still, it makes for good television. More than ever, cable news is a political perch, and “The Dylan Ratigan Show” is just one example of Mr. Griffin’s effort to build a bench of opinionated hosts. This month, he announced that the Democratic political analyst Lawrence O’Donnell would be the host of a show at 10 p.m., starting this fall.

There are early signs that viewers are responding favorably to Mr. Ratigan. His show, which is on at 4 p.m. on weekdays, had an average of 330,000 viewers each afternoon in May, up 20 percent from the straightforward newscast that ran on MSNBC in that time slot last year — yet another viewer vote for opinion over old-fashioned news.

But in the battle for second place behind Fox News, MSNBC still loses to CNN in the daytime — including Mr. Ratigan’s hour — even though it wins at night..

Mr. Ratigan went to work at CNBC in 2005 after spending his 20s at Bloomberg Television as a journalist and a manager, a job he won after getting to know Michael Bloomberg’s ex-wife and daughters. They recommended him for an entry-level job, Mr. Ratigan said. He agrees with the gossip column claims that he fought all the time with his bosses at CNBC about the structure of
“Fast Money,”
but he says the disputes had nothing to do with his exit in early 2009.

He traces his midcareer conversion to fall 2008, when he says he came to see the corrupt practices of banks, special interests and politicians.

At MSNBC, Mr. Ratigan was initially given a midmorning time slot, but he made no dent in the ratings. Mr. Griffin concluded that “he plays better in the afternoon,” closer to the channel’s evening lineup of point-of-view hosts like Chris Matthews and Ed Schultz.

Mr. Ratigan does not just have a point of view, he has a point — one that he repeats relentlessly and feverishly, sometimes with props like buckets and Monopoly money. To hear Mr. Ratigan tell it, the American people are being held hostage by a banking system that acts like a government subsidized casino. His analogy: “My mother is paying taxes to the government. The government is giving her money to the banks. The banks are gambling like they’re watching ‘Fast Money.’ But my mother didn’t sign up for that.”

Mr. Ratigan said flatly, “As long as there’s been banks and governments, banks and governments have been conspiring to take money from the people.” What has changed now, he said, is that “we have the ability to engage it directly,” through fair elections and a free press. The first step in his playbook, then, is to end the denial about it through his show.

He made headlines online in December when he cut off an interview with a congresswoman after fighting with her over what he called the “private insurance monopoly” that stood to benefit from an overhaul of health care.

“You’re asking your own questions and answering them. You could be your own guest,” Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Democrat of Florida, said on the show (Mr. Ratigan later apologized). Most of the time he reins himself in, recognizing, he says, that anger distracts from productive conversations.

Of course, in the bailout era, going after greed is arguably an easy way to “get a lot of people behind you,” Mr. Leckey said, calling it “an almost fail-safe position to be in.”

What has changed, perhaps, is that, while an anchorman like Mr. Dobbs fought to express his opinions on CNN, Mr. Ratigan is being emboldened by his bosses. Mr. Griffin likened Mr. Ratigan to a “wild mustang,” and said, “I don’t want to change him. I want to tame him a little bit,” so that the audience can keep up.

His advice to Mr. Ratigan: “If you want to create a movement, take it a little slower,” he said.

A version of this article appears in print on June 28, 2010, on page B1 of the New York edition with the headline: From CNBC Business Journalist to Critic of Bankers on MSNBC. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe